Posted on 10/14/2004 3:01:41 AM PDT by naturalman1975
Christopher Reeve's obsession with stem cell research could cost other areas of medicine, warns Michael Cook.
Why are we rushing to canonise Christopher Reeve? To US presidential hopeful John Kerry, the quadriplegic actor who died this week was "truly America's hero". To NSW Premier Bob Carr, he was "the most impressive person I have ever met".
No one questions the bravery, intelligence and iron will of the paralysed actor. And his global recognition as the face of disability was unparalleled. But there is a downside. Reeve's almost fanatical determination to walk again could end up burdening Californians with a huge debt, hampering the development of medical research and injuring the cause of the disabled.
First, consider his impact on the economy. When Americans go to the polls in November's election, there will be more at stake than politicians' jobs in California, where voters will also be deciding the fate of Proposition 71, a plan to spend US$3 billion ($A4.1 billion) over 10 years on stem cell research.
At the moment, with the finances of the world's fifth-largest economy looking wobbly, the prospect of paying back $US6 billion over 30 years makes a "Yes" vote uncertain. But a wave of nostalgic sympathy for Reeve could push it over the line.
Perhaps inspired by his efforts, suffering celebrities with money to burn are agitating for embryo research. There's sitcom star Mary Tyler Moore, who has diabetes and argues that embryo research is needed to cure diabetes. There's Michael J. Fox, who has Parkinson's disease. He featured in an advertisement this month for the Kerry campaign, pleading for federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. There's Michael J. Kinsley, former boy wonder editor of the New Republic and Microsoft's internet magazine Slate. He has early-onset Parkinson's disease and uses his columns to spray opponents of embryo research with caustic abuse.
Proposition 71 was born in Hollywood, the brainchild of Douglas Wick, a producer of Gladiator, Jerry Zucker, director of Ghost, and his wife Janet, a producer. They have children with juvenile diabetes and believe that therapeutic cloning will cure them.
Unfortunately, if a cure for diabetes ever does emerge from therapeutic cloning, it is likely to be so expensive that only the children of the glitterati will be able to afford them. The taxes of the Californian poor will end up paying for research for the rich.
Second, sympathy for a personal tragedy is not a good guideline for directing medical research funding.
Once he was forced to live in a wheelchair, Reeve dedicated himself to lobbying for destructive research on embryos. He was absolutely convinced that only the versatility of embryonic stem cells could guarantee a cure for spinal cord injuries. Hundreds of thousands of people would die unless research began as soon as possible, he told the US Congress in a blaze of publicity.
As a result, Hollywood activism is upsetting priorities in medical research, laments prominent US bioethicist Arthur Caplan.
"The problem with celebrity fund-raising is simply that it is not fair," Caplan writes. "Celebrities who try to lobby Congress sometimes don't know the science well enough to know what is the best way to spend the nation's research budget. So the budget can get distorted and some people with real diseases that have a real shot at a cure, if only the money were spent on them, lose out."
Besides, some distressing ailments are too "uncool" to attract support. "It is hard to imagine J-Lo or Jennifer Anniston leading a march on Washington to demand more research on urinary incontinence," quips Caplan.
And third, the tub-thumping of Reeve and other suffering celebrities has muffled dissenting voices among the disabled.
Reeve's visit to Sydney last year was not greeted enthusiastically. Stem cells? asked quadriplegics Erik Leipoldt and Maurice Corcoran. What about wheelchair ramps? What makes the lives of quadriplegics so difficult, they said, is "inadequate support services, de-humanising institutions, high levels of unemployment and exclusion from regular education" - not restrictions on scientific research.
Some Australian and American activists were horrified by Reeve's focus on embryonic stem cells and therapeutic cloning. Take Joni Eareckson Tada, an American woman who broke her neck in a diving accident 35 years ago. She has all of Reeve's eloquence and courage - but not his money and star status. Unlike Reeve, she is campaigning against embryo research.
"I find it shameful that some of my associates with disabilities are using their physical impairment as a plea to promote research cloning, and I am offended that words like 'helpless victim' and 'being trapped in a useless body' are used to sway the sympathies of legislators," she said recently.
Canonisation ought to be the result of a long and exacting examination of a life journey. Before we put a halo on the Man of Steel, let's see whether his legacy is enduring and positive.
Michael Cook is the editor of BioEdge, an email newsletter on bioethics.
It's sad when folks have tragedies happen to them, but the argument saying baby humans have to die so that one can be cured contradicts basic moral and ethical principles in a way that is reminiscent of Dr. Mengele, where the purpose of the research trumped the humanity of his test subjects.
Amen! I judge a person by his/her regard for the well being of others.
According to Edwards if Kerry wins we're in for the fourth installment of the "Return of the Living Dead" starring Christopher Reeve. He's gonna get up and walk and Edwards will channel him so you can hear it straight from the horse's mouth.
Not only that but he'll vote Dem too.
Just more leftist selfishness.
Pretty good vest-pocket summary. My late first wife was a quad... if you really want to make a practical difference? Curb cuts. Power chairs. Better van lifts, better prosthetic devices. Incentives for businesses to hire the handicapped and keep them.
Research is important, and needs to be done, but I well recall talk almost 25 years ago of "the cure being just around the corner!" We actually went through a period of hope, all those years ago, that she might have a chance to stand up before her muscles so atrophied that it was impossible. Turns out the talk was just so much vaporware- a term not even known back then.
Kerry wants to be President because he just wants the title. Once he gets it he will do nothing but bicycle, windsurf and all the other stuff self absorbed idiots like him do. He is going to be the David Dinkins of the White House. When David Dinkins was Mayor of NYC he did only one of two things; 1. He played tennis or 2. He went on vacation. That`s all he ever did. Kerry is going to be the same way. Why? Look at his freggin` record as Senator! He does nothing! He accomplishes nothing! All he does is play with his toys, that`s all he does, that`s all he is interested in.
This twit gets elected we will be seeing scenes like major terror attacks or other crisis situations while he will be sking or windsurfing. That`s all you will ever see this guy do. He will just show up at the White House once in a while when he absolutely positively must be there, then he will be off skateboarding or vacationing in France. I will bet anything on that.
Bump !!!!!!
Reeve's had no problem sacrificing babies in the womb so that he might someday walk. That is not the act of a hero, it is the act of a scared coward.
It is no wonder that he and kerry got along so well.
It's actually worse than that-- they "want to believe it" and that is all they need-- actual performance is irrelevant.
There is a line from Seven King's "Gunslinger" series that has always stuck with me for some reason... after the usual perils, the two heroes run across a peasant, who tells them that once the rightful heir is restored, "All manner O' tings will be made well in the land again..."
That's what the Left is looking for- a secular Saviour to deliver them from the Great Darkness that is All Things Boosh.
His actual merits, positions, and performance matter not.
I just hope that this never comes to pass.
Reeves is but a footnote to a footnote.
There isn't much I wouldn't do to see my husband free of the debilitating pain he suffers from his spinal cord injury. But killing a baby is not on that list and never will be. If politicians want to do something concrete to help spinal cord injury victims how about reforming workmen's comp. so that they don't get victimized by the system as well as their injury?
There is no evidence that stem cells will be the cure-all that the liberals are claiming. They'll waste good research money on fetal stem cells just to try to make abortion seem like the most wonderful thing that came alone, babies will be conceived and harvested for their cells and organs.
Reeves also didn't get injured in any heroic way --- he was a rich man with a rich but dangerous hobby, he overestimated his abilities and was injured because of that but was not a hero. His money bought him the best health care and he figured it should buy him the harvested bodies of babies too. There are better men and women to call heros.
A movie star gets a terrible disease or has a horrible accident. They want to be cured so they get on the bandwagon for their PERSONAL cause. Something always bothers me about that. I can never quite put my finger on it.....
I was in a focus group on charities, and someone noted that Reeve was in no way active about finding a cure for paralysis until he himself needed help. I thought that was a good point.
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